They were the Gabor sisters: Magda, Zsa Zsa and Eva, the ultimate international beauty queens. Of the three, Eva was the most prominent as an actress, her most famous role being “Lisa” in the cult favorite TV show, Green Acres, but Zsa Zsa was probably the best known, in no small part because of her showy personality.  It is Zsa Zsa who will help us with this post.

If you are of a certain age, Zsa Zsa was a household name, and everyone knew how to say it. It wasn’t, “Za-Za,” it was ZHAH-zhah, emphasis on the first syllable, and each syllable pronounced the way you would say “viSION.” That is how the “zs” combination is pronounced in Hungarian, and that is why the Vizsla’s name is accurately pronounced VEE-zshla.

Sometimes erroneously thought of as a coat variation of the Vizsla, the Wirehaired Vizsla’s Hungarian name is Drótszőrű Vizsla, or Drótszőrű Magyar Vizsla.

“Drótszőrű” means wirehaired;

“Magyar”means Hungarian;

As for Vizsla, it is similar to the French word, “braque” which means “pointing dog.”

To say the breed name in Hungarian, one would say “drote-zoo-roo” “mudg-yar” “vee-zshla,” emphasis always on the first syllable of each word.

Had Charles Newman, the first person to import a Wirehaired Vizsla into the United States, had his way, we would be writing about the Uplander, the name he preferred for the breed as it would help differentiate the Wirehaired from its smooth-coated relative, the Vizsla. The AKC didn’t agree, and though Newman was also the first person to breed the breed in America, he came to give up on the idea.